Instant Pot Zuppa Toscana

This Instant Pot Zuppa Toscana is a copycat recipe of the popular Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana. It’s loaded with sausage and potatoes but best of all it’s homemade and even more delicious!

The Olive Garden used to be one of my favorite restaurants and we used to love going there for lunch to have the soup and salad. One of my favorite soups there is the Zuppa Toscana.

Zuppa Toscana basically means Tuscany Soup and a classic zuppa Toscana is normally a soup made from kale, potatoes, sometimes cannellini beans, onion and carrots. The main difference with the Olive Garden is the Italian sausage.

I chose an milder Italian sausage for this soup but I did add some red pepper flakes. You can definitely make it spicier by using a spicy Italian sausage, and adjust the red pepper flakes to your liking.

Usually heavy cream is added to this soup but I used half and half which has a lower fat percentage than heavy cream. If you don’t like kale, spinach can also be used. This soup is delicious and comforting, all in one pot, easy to prepare totally satisfying. Every spoonful is loaded with chunks of Italian sausage and potatoes.

I promised you a lot more instant pot recipes, and trust me I have more to come. I love the Instant Pot and it really is my most used kitchen appliance now. It just makes things so much easier and quicker.

Turn your Instant Pot to the saute setting. (See your manufacturer's guide for detailed instructions on how to use your instant pot.)

Heat the olive oil in the Instant Pot, then add the sausage and brown for 3 minutes until it's no longer pink, breaking up with a wooden spoon.

Stir in the onion and garlic and cook for another 3 minutes until the onion softens and becomes translucent.

Stir in the red pepper flakes, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Add the cubed potatoes and the chicken broth. Give it a stir.

Close the lid (follow the manufacturer's guide for instructions on how to close the instant pot lid). Set the Instant Pot to the Manual setting and set the timer to 5 minutes.

Once the Instant Pot cycle is complete, wait until the natural release cycle is complete, should take about 10 minutes. Follow the manufacturer's guide for quick release, if in a rush. Carefully unlock and remove the lid from the instant pot.

At this point you can adjust the salt and pepper if necessary. Add the chopped kale and set the Instant Pot to the saute setting again. Cook for two more minutes uncovered, until the kale cooks a bit. Stir in the half and half or heavy cream.

Turn off the Instant Pot, by pressing the cancel button. Serve the soup warm garnished with Parmesan cheese or bacon bits if preferred.

Recipe Notes

What is an Instant Pot: An Instant Pot is a multi-cooker, it's like seven different appliances all in one! It does the job of a slow cooker, pressure cooker, rice cooker, steamer, yogurt maker, etc.

Note: The Instant Pot will default to 30 minutes when set on manual, use the down arrow to change to 5 minutes.

Half and half can be found near the milk and cream in the dairy section of your local grocery store. Half and half is a blend of equal parts whole milk and light cream. It averages 10 to 12% of fat.

Nutrition: Nutritional information assumes about 2 cups per serving. Please keep in mind that nutritional information is a rough estimate and can vary greatly based on products used.

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Hi, In my country we have no Italian sausage casings removed, (I used mild, but spicy can be used). Which product I can use instead? 2) I am not aloud to use creams because of my diet, which product I can use? Thanks

You don’t have Italian sausage? Well try and use a pork sausage you can find, but make sure you remove the casings if necessary. This is a creamy soup so the cream is necessary for this soup, perhaps a different recipe would be better for you such as this Brazilian Shrimp Soup or Instant Pot Chicken Noodle soup.

Thanks for reminding me of this soup. I’m doing the Keto eating plan so I’m going to make it with chopped cauliflower instead of potatoes and then top it off with heavy cream. Can’t wait to try it but I can tell it will be delicious!!

Basically you would follow the instructions as they are but instead of closing the lid as mentioned in step 5, I would turn the heat down and cook for about 15 minutes until the potatoes are fork tender, then follow the rest of the instructions.

I love all you Instant pot recipes and I’m really happy when you share another one. Thank you for all your recipes, they really are delicious and so easy to follow. Can’t wait to make this tomorrow, it looks so incredible!